Embrace (46 page)

Then he asked what I liked least about him and I immediately said there was nothing.

‘And me?’ I asked.

‘Your moods. When you’re unpredictable. The way you change from laughing and pestering one minute, to going off the next and sitting on your own. Sulking and feeling sorry for yourself’

I wasn’t sulking when I went off alone, I said. I just had to think about things. I needed to be by myself to work through issues.

‘Well, still,’ he whispered, ‘we never know what’s going on with you when you become like that. Too much working through issues will drive you crazy.’

He asked what I liked most about his body. He was again venturing where I had not thought of going outside my own silent contemplation. How vast the distance, I could have self-consciously identified that night, between what we can think and feel, and what we can and eventually will and do say. And is what we don’t say closer to what may be true?

He prodded me with his elbow. Unable to say that I liked the angleof his neck before me in class, the peculiar shape of his fingertips as they spread over full octaves, I turned the question around and asked him rather to say what he liked most about his own body.

‘My eyes, most, I suppose. And least that I’m so short and so fucken thin.’

‘I always wanted to be short and thin,’ I whispered, ‘I wanted to be a jockey.’

And you?’ he whispered. ‘What do you like least about your body?’ It was becoming easier. Barriers were falling away.

‘I wish I had a chest and pecs like Bennie. And I want to look like Robert Redford or Steven. He’s as beautiful as a boy’s allowed to be before he looks like a girl.’

‘But, my boy, my dea fella!’ Dominic put on an American drawl. ‘You’ve got my kinda looks, Karl. And Mom and Dad also think you’re far more gorgeous than Steven.’ He laughed: ‘Bennie’s a short-arse, like me. Your legs are great. No, you’re much better looking than Steven and you do look a bit like Robert Redford. I wish I was as tall as you or Lukas.’

‘I would prefer to be your length,’ I said.

‘Height,’ he said, and laughing, added, ‘length is what Mervy’s got between his legs.’

‘I wouldn’t mind having Mervy s length! Fuck, it’s huge. Though I don’t want it to be red and clammy like his.’ When it became a little chilly I dragged the sheet back over us, feeling for the wet corner, bringing it briefly to my nose, trying to place the smell.

And I love the way you move. So does Mum,’ he said. ‘Mum says it’s so androgynous.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘It’s a mixture between the way a man moves and the way a woman moves, like a dancer.’ Blood rushed to my face. I couldn’t respond. Did he not realise that this was the last thing on earth I wanted to hear? I felt like kicking him off the bed, telling him to go back to his own side of the room. I would keep my eyes on Bennie and Lukas,

I thought. See how they moved. Get away from the
borderline.
Androgynous was not how I was going to move, could not afford to move.

‘Mom says you’re going to be as handsome as your father, when you grow up.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘Why not? He’s very good-looking you know.’

‘I read somewhere that we re born with the face God has given us, and by the time were thirty-five we carry the faces we deserve.’

‘So? What’s that got to do with you being good-looking?’ ‘Nothing,’ I said, unable to express the certitude that I would deserve an ugly face, that I knew the face God had given me had already by that night malformed.

I thought he had fallen asleep, but then he lifted himself, leant over and kissed me on the lips. Again I was embarrassed, but allowed it. Just a peck, not with an open mouth. Only lips against mine for what was less than a second.

The bus took us to Blantyre International from where we boarded the Air Malawi 727 to take us back to Jan Smuts. Having overcome his fear of flying, Bennie told the whole plane that Dominic and I had danced with a kaffir the previous evening. I felt no shame, threw my hands into the air and said I’d do it again given half the chance. And Dominic, speaking loud so that half the choir could hear, said he could understand Bennie’s discomfort, for Tobie was after all a much better-looking man than Bennie could ever dream of being. Feeling as on top of the world, finding it unthinkable that I would ever again be unhappy, let alone have the blues, I sat gazing down on the Africa beneath us. No one — ever — had been as happy as I had for most of the four days at the lake. There was the fact that I was not coming back to the school. That I was not sharing with any of the others. I would write to Dominic, explain that I had to start high school in Durban. We would be pen pals, perhaps visit each other in the years ahead. And I could phone him when no one was home.

At Jan Smuts the Clemence-Gordons and the Websters and Bennie’s mother were waiting. We all stood for group photos and Dr Webster asked Mr Clemence-Gordon to take a photograph of me and Dom between him and Mrs Webster. The luggage with the yellow dots came stuttering along on the newly installed conveyor belts. Lukas was catching another flight to Port Elizabeth and I was flying on to Durban. We took our cases from the conveyer. That was the last time I ever saw Steven Almeida. His parents were there with his beautiful sister, Marguerite. Lukas and I almost knocked Mervy down with a choir bench as we looked on Marguerite Almeida; her flawless, exquisite face, her long, curly black hair, her huge black eyes and olive skin. Like her brother, she was one of the most gorgeous creatures I had ever set eyes on.

And so the choir and the six of us split up, saying we’d see each other again at the end of January. And Dom, with his parents at his side, came up and hugged me. ‘Loelovise yokou,’ he said and for a moment I wasn’t sure how to respond. He pulled a face and hugged me again, now whispering in my ear: ‘Soosayok yokou loelovise mime titoo.’ He pulled away. He was standing right in front of me with his parents smiling at us from behind him. I at last managed: ‘Loelovise yokou titoo.’The Websters hugged me and said they’d see me at dropoff, end of January.

I tried not to think of not seeing them ever again. I’m going on with my life, I whispered to myself. Uncle Charlie gave me my ticket and said I and the other Durban boys should move to check-in and board on time. We made our way to domestic departures. A thought struck me and I told the others I’d join them in a second, I just needed to go to the toilet. They told me to hurry.

I dragged my suitcase into a stall where I unclipped it and pulled out the Paris T-shirt. I dropped it into the toilet bowl. Flushed. It didn’t disappear. I began to panic, worried now that I’d miss myplane. I flushed again, but the tank had not yet refilled itself. I lifted the tank’s lid off and set it on top of my suitcase. I dragged the dripping T-shirt from the toilet bowl and dropped it in the tank. Secured the lid.

Ran to check-in. The other two were gone, already on the plane. I boarded the flight. I was seated alone, away from the others. Bok and Bokkie would be waiting. What would they be able to read from my face? Had last night with Dom changed the way I looked? Would Bok smell it on me? Halfway to Durban I went into the airplane’s loo and washed my hands, over and over. I stared at my tanned face in the mirror, wondered whether there were lines around my eyes that would give me away. Lifted my penis and scrotum through the flannels, bent my back and neck down as far as I could and sniffed. Undid the belt, dropped the flannels to the floor and washed my loins.

There was, to my mind, something gratifying in my return being from outside the borders of South Africa. With the family, awaiting me at Louis Botha, was Alette. She had cut her hair, short, like Lena. The two of them, beside each other, looked more as if they were sisters rather than Lena and Bernice. It was two days before Christmas; hot and humid inside and out, everyone tanned and brown, looking healthy and happy with the world and with me being home.

I said I’d brought gifts; that Malawi had been the most unforgettable experience of my life and that I wanted to live there when I grew up. As we drove off, leaving the Isipingo Flats below us, I listed the cities where we’d sung, told them about the Olvers, the markets, the lake, the catamaran, the snorkelling and that Ma’am Sanders had turned out to be quite nice. Lena said Ma’am’s sister Miss Hope was a real pain but Alette said she liked her. Sitting half on my lap in the back seat, Alette asked about the concerts. I said that the one in the Central Africa Presbyterian church had probably been the highlight. I spoke about the heat, about boys fainting on stage. Lied about us getting three encores. Bokkie said fainting wasn’t unusual in the heat of the tropics. She’d fainted regularly while pregnant with Bernice and Lena in Oljorro.

At the Bowen Street house the fold-out plastic tree from Mkuzi days stood on its tripod in the lounge, its plastic fur covered in cotton, glitter and streamers, the fairy with her staff and silver star at the crest. It was decided that we’d not keep the Malawi gifts for Christmas Day and I handed them out, still unwrapped, together with the cigarettes Ma’am and Mr Mathison had not found very pleasing. Bokkie said I was fuelling Bok’s filthy habit and if only he’d stop smoking he’d be able to feel how good she felt after almost two years of being free from enslavement to nicotene.

I told them how Lukas and I had stayed with white people who had a black child. The girls laughed at the thought of my hosts having a piccanin, but Bok said he would be the first to let a decent black man move in next door. Someone like Gatsha Buthelezi. The problem was that all blacks were not ready to be civilised like Gatsha — you would go far to find other kaffirs like him — so before you knew it there would be ten families sardined into a house meant for one. Just like the charras of Chatsworth. You couldn’t believe how many coolies could fit into one tiny house.

I changed into shorts as it was too hot for flannels. Bokkie said that Uncle Joe and Aunt Lena were coming to the Malibu for a week around New Year. Alette and her family were going to Margate on the south coast, but they’d be back before I returned to the Berg. About my intention of not returning I said nothing. The right moment would, some time over the break, present itself.

I said I’d walk Alette home. Lena rose to join us.

Bok intervened: ‘Let them go alone, Leen’tjie, they haven’t seen each other for six months and you see Alette every day.’

Lena said no more than a quiet okay, and sank back into thecouch. I sensed the change in her mood. With that one suggestion, my father had, unwittingly, drawn the holidays battle line between my sister and me. Lena could come along, I suggested, but she now declined, saying she’d see Alette tomorrow. Bernice suggested we all go to the beach if it were sunny. We agreed and Lena asked whether she could phone James to hear whether he wanted to join us.

Alette and I walked down the middle of the quiet street. There were houses only on the west side. On the east was virgin bush all the way to the railway lines. This was home to vervet monkeys, the only wild animals abundant in Natal outside the game reserves. No wildlife stands a chance outside reserves — Bokkie said — in a country where people are so poor they eat anything that moves. Beyond the railway line was Kingsway High where James went and Stephanie had finished matric. East of the school lay the South Coast Highway, then another suburb, then the holiday stretch along the beach front. We turned from Bowen into Dan Pienaar. I took Alette’s hand, folding her fingers into mine. The night was us touching, crickets and cicadas, yellow streetlamps with moths and midges, no traffic to push us onto the long grass where one day there would be pavements. I felt a thrill of pride, holding her hand, a rush of excitement at walking alone at night, so publicly as though we were unapologetic lovers. I asked about her parents, her piano lessons, and she enquired more about Malawi, Dominic and Lukas.

We reached the bottom of their driveway. My heart was bouncing in my chest. That this was night, changed everything between us. The intimacies and playful lusts we had over the years shared in the broad daylight of the bird sanctuary, in that instant somehow meant something quite different from even the tiny gesture of holding hands as we moved down a night street. A vision of Dom and I the previous night passed through my mind. Alette and I would kiss, I suspected, something we had never done at night before. When she smiled her teeth glistened. I knew she wanted me to kiss her. We faced each other, a small step between us. I closed the space, leant forward andbrought my mouth to her slightly parted lips. After a few seconds I drew back. Now she stepped forward and again rested her mouth against mine. Without letting our bodies touch, she ran her tongue across my top lip. I closed my eyes and began to partake of my first ever open-mouthed kiss. I was overwhelmed by the strangeness of her tongue moving against mine — it was rough, not smooth as I would have imagined — and the movement of her wet lips over and beneath mine. When she pressed her tongue against my front teeth, then again traced the outline of my lips, I felt myself gone stiff and I let my arms take her shoulders, pulling her closer to me. Her arms went around my neck and we pushed our mouths together, now more aggressive. I held her tightly, pushing my erection against her skirt. She pulled away, wordlessly, still smiling. Again I kissed her, pulled her to me; now she giggled and wriggled from my embrace. I thought it silly, that she, who had allowed me to touch her vagina and breasts before, was acting coy. Surely a kiss could not be more taboo than doing those other things? It was, I thought, this thing of the night. The night that changes everything. As if following something of the speculation of my mind, she said: ‘We re getting too old for that.’ Her attitude was perplexing. I said nothing and she started up the driveway.

‘I’m not going back, in January.’

‘You aren’t?’ She stopped and turned back.

‘No. I want to start high school in Durban.’

‘Everyone is under the impression you’re going back.’

‘I haven’t told them. So maybe you shouldn’t say anything. Not yet.’ ‘It’s only three or so weeks away. You better say something.’